Home > Chris Matthews Slobbers Over Bill Clinton While Peddling 'President of the World' Documentary

Chris Matthews Slobbers Over Bill Clinton While Peddling 'President of the World' Documentary

By

Matt Hadro

February 21, 2011 - 4:32pm

For about seven minutes on Monday's "Morning Joe," Chris Matthews
celebrated his President's Day fawning over former President Clinton.
Matthews had nothing but praise for the nation's 42nd president in
anticipation of the documentary "President of the World" - apparently
Clinton's new title - airing at 10 p.m. EST Monday on MSNBC.

"You know, Churchill's huge in this country and he's 70-30 back in
England, and Nixon is probably 20-80 here, but in France he's about
60-40. You know, he's 100-0 around the world, Bill Clinton," Matthews
remarked. Apparently Clinton is more liked around the globe than
Churchill.

"He is, I don't know what IQ, what, 160? I don't know what it is"
Matthews rambled, in awe of Clinton's intellect. "He studies economics
an hour a day," he added. "He gets up every morning and does, like, a
daily office....Somebody asked me the other day what makes him click? I
said he won't quit. He doesn't want the lights to go out. It isn't
complicated. I don't want to go to sleep, mommy."

Matthews
by and large held court for the segment, offering long-winded
descriptions of his travels with President Clinton and taking soft
questions from the "Morning Joe" panel. Time's Mark Halperin asked how
Clinton's brain worked. Co-host Mika Brzezinski, ever a Jimmy Carter fan
whose father worked in his administration, asked Matthews to compare
Clinton's post-presidency with Carter's.

"I think it's a good story," Matthews remarked. "And I think that
nobody else has gotten it, ten years of doing good work." He may have
forgotten the coverage Clinton has received for his work. GQ magazine
named him one of their Men of the Year for 2007. Esquire magazine
granted him a lengthy interview recently where he was able to expound on
his humanitarian work of the past decade.

But Matthews is overflowing with optimism and excitement for the
documentary - he might even have a thrill up his leg. "I say to people,
get out a big popcorn supply. This is one of the best news shows you've
ever seen," Matthews blathered. "Pure, positive, optimistic."

MSNBC has been advertising for "President of the World" for weeks. The
trailer includes a clip of Matthews telling Clinton "You're like a
one-man peace corps" and liberal actor Kevin Spacey describing how a
crowd chanted "Peacemaker! Peacemaker!" for Clinton.

A transcript of the segment, which aired on February 21 at 8:23 a.m. EST, is as follows:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: I think it's a whole different story to Bill Clinton.
It's a whole different story than the eight years we knew Bill Clinton,
and the ten years going back to the '88 speech, or 12 years. It's a
whole different Clinton. Who would have predicted that he would have
left the White House, after Mark Rich, after Monica and all that - and
done ten years of really good work around the world - my son was exposed
to it about four or five years ago, when he got out of Brown
University. And I saw him over there working in Africa with the
foundation - there he is, a quartermaster, making sure the drugs don't
get stolen by the kleptocracies over there. They make sure the drugs get
through to the people.

And so this is real work, and I think it's a good story. And I think
that nobody else has gotten it, ten years of doing good work. And I
think there's an aspect of Lord Jim to this, there's an aspect of making
up for the past.

MIKE BARNICLE: What are the differences between -

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Remember Lord Jim?

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Mm-hmm.

BARNICLE: Yeah. What are the differences between Bill Clinton today and Bill Clinton circa 1996 -

MATTHEWS: I don't know, except who would have predicted there would be
no embarrassments, no scandals - let's be honest, people watch him, he's
been doing good work, he's been out there traveling around, doing -
what's the worst you can say? He enjoys the company of world leaders and
celebrities. Baaad.

No, good. Because in every case he gets these guys - I went to the
Global Initiative here in New York, last year, and what did they do? You
can't walk in the room with Bill Clinton unless putting up your money
and say "I'm going to do something good." Put up some money and then do
something good, or you don't get in the room. So he's sort of sharing
his - well the thing I noticed was we pulled together the footage. I
didn't go all around the world with the guy - we don't have that budget
at MSNBC, if you haven't noticed. But I did go to Northern Ireland with
him, and I gotta tell you something, wherever he goes, he's bigger than
the host president. Now that is different than here. And part of it is
this - you know, Churchill's huge in this country and he's 70-30 back in
England, and Nixon is probably 20-80 here, but in France he's about
60-40. You know, he's 100-0 around the world, Bill Clinton.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: How does his post-presidency compare to Jimmy Carter's?

MATTHEWS: Bigger. Jimmy Carter was a small-businessman, this guy is
corporate. Corporate and multi-national. Big time, he knows how to
leverage. Carter has to do it himself. I worked for Carter.

BRZEZINSKI: I know. That's why I asked.

(...)

MARK HALPERIN: Hillary Clinton once said that when Bill Clinton dies,
they should study his brain. What's his brain like today, how active is
he? How aware is he? How - what is he like?

MATTHEWS: I'll tell you with Bill Clinton - you're gonna love this. You
get up in the morning, and you're in Northern Ireland, and there's like
a table, like an MBA meeting, a case studies thing like at Harvard
Business with all these cards in front of you with your name on it.
These are Protestant guys, most of them I figure. They're all sitting
there - not that it matters - and they're all sitting there around the
table, looking at him, asking him business advice like he's their guru.
Like it's not just macro-general BS - they think he's going to bring
back the Kelly Tiger. And he's going to help each one of those
businesses, and "What should I do with my business?" How does he know?
'Cause he studies economics an hour a day. Okay, he's that kind of guy.

That, and too, he opens up the Bill Clinton Institute for American
Political Studies at the City College in Dublin. That's just another
thing, (Unintelligible). That and he does the American-Ireland Forum,
which you know Michael, black tie dinner, all the American-Irish and all
the Irish over there - all the rich Irish in Dublin - huge fundraiser.
That's the beginning of his day. He goes back to his hotel room, puts on
his jeans, and his perfect zip-up sweater - by the way, his entire
staff dresses exactly the same way - and goes to the Shamboard bar in
Dublin, on St. Stevens Square there, and holds court forever. And all
these people are lining up to have time with his dance card, and he's
there working this incredible room of people, and they've just been
invited from all the British Isles to keep up with him. And you know,
Doug Ban is making sure they're all there, he gives me my two minutes,
we talked about Africa and culture and all this stuff - I don't know how
he zeroes in on people, and it's exactly what they might want to talk
about - he is, I don't know what IQ, what, 160? I don't know what it is.

BARNICLE: To the point that you just raised, I heard, anecdotally -

MATTHEWS: By the way, it's all in the documentary, what I'm describing -

SCARBOROUGH: Ten O'Clock tonight. On MSNBC.

MATTHEWS: Ten O'Clock tonight. It is an hour - I say to people, get out
a big popcorn supply. This is one of the best news shows you've ever
seen. Pure, positive, optimistic, and I modeled it after - remember that
thing years ago, I don't know if you were old enough, Joe, remember
"Don't Look Back," the Bob Dylan doc - I modeled it after that.

(...)

MIKE BARNICLE: To the point you raised earlier about people sitting
around a table in Belfast with the name cards wanting to talk to the
President - I heard anecdotally, several months ago, last fall a group
of American business leaders in the White House to meet with President
Obama, President Clinton is also in the White House on the same day. He
joins the meeting, and the American business leaders couldn't wait for
President Obama to leave so they could talk to the guy they wanted to
talk to, President Clinton, about the economy.

MATTHEWS: He gets up every morning and does like a daily office. (...)
It's all - did you read the Journal today, see what's happening with
IBM? He does an hour a day, gets up and does his daily office. So he's
talking about right now. You know, somebody asked me the other day what
makes him click? I said he won't quit. He doesn't want the lights to go
out. It isn't complicated. I don't want to go to sleep, mommy.

-Matt Hadro is News Analysis intern at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here[1].